1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bed for nursing care for a care-dependent person; more specifically, the invention relates to a bed for nursing care including a toilet bowl.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, considerable burden is imposed on a caregiver, such as a nurse, to nurse a care-dependent person, such as a bedridden physically challenged person or aged person. As such, in recent years the various beds for nursing care for reducing the labor and burden imposed on caregivers are proposed.
For example, among conventional beds for nursing care, there is known a bed for nursing care, in which an opening is formed at a position corresponding to a hip portion of a care-dependent person, and a toilet bowl is moved and then is set at the opening in response to operation of a switch performed by the care-dependent person at use time, and the opening is closed by a mat during non-use time.
The above is described in, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-212186 (Patent Document 1).
However, with the conventional bed for nursing care as described above, problems arise in that, since the care-dependent person cannot assume a posture necessary for easy excretion, the care-dependent person cannot easily carry out excretion and in that excretion is needed to be carried out in a painstaking posture.
Other problems arising therewith include those in that, since the caregiver needs to assume an unnatural posture on the mat to carry out colonic irrigation for the care-dependent person, it is difficult for the caregiver to carry out the colonic irrigation, and in that there is a risk of fouling the mat and the like during colonic irrigation.